The external hard drive has become an integral part of most desks. It offers all the advantages of conventional, permanently installed hard drives and combines them with the advantage of portability. In the following, we want to give you an insight into the various designs of such hard drives and what you should pay attention to.
The differences between different external hard drives
Compared to a normal one hard disk, the external variant impresses with the fact that it is not permanently installed, but is portable and can therefore be taken anywhere. It has a case and all you need is the right cable to use it on any computer you can think of.
type of disk
Here we are mainly concerned with the technology used. An external HDD is, to make a long story short, a bit slower than an external SSD. So if you frequently move larger amounts of data to or from the hard drive, you should use an SSD, as this speed increase will then be noticeable. So-called SSHDs also exist as a compromise, although these are not very helpful as an external hard drive.
Size, form factor and Co.
Most conventional external HDD hard drives come in a 3,5 or 2,5 inch form factor. Whereby the difference between the smaller and the larger is quite large. While the smaller ones fit into the tiny compartment of a laptop bag, you should have more space in your backpack for the larger ones.
SSDs are not available in 3,5 inches. For a long time, these hard drives were primarily available in the 2,5-inch format. However, much smaller SSDs are now available.
When it comes to size, you should think carefully about what you need beforehand. If you only travel a lot with a laptop bag, for example, it is worth grabbing a small external SSD hard drive.
However, when buying an external hard drive, you should also make sure that you really buy an external one. If you don't know, you might get confused. Then: SSDs and HDDs are also available to be built into the computer. However, these are not suitable for portable use without a corresponding housing.
External hard drive connection type
Most current hard drives come with USB Connection. You should check whether your device(s) are compatible with the respective type. If you have a computer that does not have USB-C, you will need a corresponding one Adapter need if the external hard drive comes with USB-C cable.
Also via Thunderbolt, eSata and FireWire the devices can be connected. However, we would recommend the current USB standard, as it ensures the highest level of connectivity through a wide range of devices.
Also to note: Some of these devices require a separate power connection, while some do not. This happens more frequently, especially with the large 3,5-inch devices. Here, too, you should consider whether you want to have this additional cable with you at all times.
A special feature are so-called NAS hard drives These can be integrated into the home network and so all users in this network can use the WiFi access it.
External hard drive capacity
One of the most important issues is the capacity of the hard drive. In the past you had to look very carefully at what data you kept on the computer. Today it is possible to store gigantic amounts of data on the smallest hard drives. But, the price of the hard drive is still determined by the capacity.
Documents such as PDFs or Word files use up the least storage space. Music and photos are a bit more, while videos in high-resolution formats take up a multiple of that. Nowadays, programs or computer games can also take up gigantic amounts of memory, although these are rarely stored on an external hard drive.
As a small summary:
- 1 MB (megabyte) equals 1024 kB (kilobytes).
- 1024 MB (megabyte) equals 1 GB (gigabyte)
- 1024 GB (gigabyte) corresponds to 1 TB (terabyte)
A typical modern-quality cell phone photo now averages around 3,5 MB of memory.
An MP3 A file with a piece of music corresponds to between 2 and 7 MB, depending on the quality and length of the piece.
An entire film in Full HD quality quickly takes up 10 GB or more.
file format
Before using your new device, you should think about which end devices you will use it on. Because not all computers share the same file system. If you want to use the memory under Windows and MacOS, for example, you can convert the hard drive to the file format exFat format must. There are also external storage devices that are optimized for use with MacOS and therefore work on an Apple device out of the box.
External Hard Drives FAQ
USB-C is now the standard that ensures connectivity with most devices.
Depends very much on what needs to be saved. If it's just Word files, a small memory size is enough, for media such as music, films and photos you can use a larger one.
If you frequently transfer large amounts of data with the device, you should get an external SSD, while the HDD would otherwise do the trick.